At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion
different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the web. Take a stroll through
Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless,
and downright
stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. We’ve cut
through the fidget
spinners and janky iPhone cases
to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects
out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project —
even those with the best intentions — can fail,
so do
your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.
Whenever you buy a new set of headphones, you probably take a
few days to break them in and tweak the fit to get the best listening
experience. Usually, this is done by simply fiddling with headband or swapping
out the earbud tips to make sure you’ve got a snug fit. But even after all that
tweaking, the sound quality of the headphones themselves is pretty much
one-size-fits all, and isn’t tailored to the acoustics of your individual ear
canals.
Nuria aims to change that. The company’s eponymous new
headphones are designed to calculate the perfect sound profile for you based on
the unique shape of your inner ear — no equalizer required. The phones actually
scan your inner ear canals and tailor the sound to optimize the way the waves
reverberate and ensure they reach your eardrums without being colorized or
degraded in any way.
Want a record player that has a vintage look, but modern
features? Look no further than the Kozmophone — a phonography-style music
player that recently launched on Kickstarter. “This year marks the 141st
anniversary of the phonograph, the brainchild of prolific inventor and original
scratch master, Thomas Edison,” the creators explain on Kickstarter. “Paying
tribute to the original, we wanted to bring back the iconic shape, so we kept
Edison’s horn-style speaker design, but we updated it for our times, adding
modern day touches, and also a touch of the future.”
“We designed Kozmophone for everyone from the first-time record
listener to the experienced vinyl enthusiast. This had to be a great record
player, one that could offer a flawless listening experience and would protect
vinyl discs no matter how many times you played them. We made sure it had all
the features a high quality turntable needs. You don’t need set up your
cartridge or purchase additional gear such as phono pre-amps, amplifiers, and
speakers. All of these are included in Kozmophone’s integrated design”.
Glue is incredibly useful, but it’s not exactly the most
user-friendly stuff in the world. It’s messy, unwieldy, and difficult to apply
with any degree of precision. Total Glue aims to fix this. Instead of
haphazardly squeezing some adhesive out of a tube, the Total Glue system allows
you to join two materials together with liquid plastic that hardens under UV
light. You know those little UV glue guns that dentists use to fill minor
cavities before they get too serious? Total Glue employs the exact same
adhesive technology, just tweaked a little and redesigned for a different
purpose.
To use Total Glue, you simply apply the desired amount of
liquid plastic to whatever you’re hoping to repair. The goop can bond
practically anything (plastic, metal, fiberglass, wood, fabric, etc.), and the
squeeze tip allows you to apply exactly as much adhesive as you need. This
adhesive will remain in liquid form until you hit it with a blast of UV light,
so you’re free to fiddle with it and make adjustments before you commit to
hardening. After about four seconds of direct UV exposure, the plastic becomes
hard as a rock — but not so hard that it resists sanding and finishing. You can
file it down and smooth it out when you’re done or add extra layers for
additional strength. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first UV
adhesive system we’ve ever seen. If you don’t feel like waiting around for a
Kickstarter to finish, check out Bondic.
Portable solar chargers have a bit of a dilemma right now.
They’re either too small to generate a useful amount of power, or too big to be
truly portable. There’s not really a happy medium, and you can’t really get the
best of both worlds — but the Soul Solar Scroll might change that. It’s
basically a sheet of ultra-thin, ultra-flexible solar cells, designed to roll
up neatly inside a tube, like a scroll of paper. Better yet, it’s also got a
battery inside, so you don’t need to have it plugged into a device in order to
store the power it collects. You can just unroll it whenever you find yourself
in a patch of sunlight, collect some solar energy, and roll it up when you’re
done.
In terms of specs, the Soul Solar Scroll boasts a 5,200mAh
rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and a 5-Watt CIGS solar panel that’s just a
couple micrometers thick. The panels are also encapsulated by two layers of
waterproof plastic, so while the device as a whole isn’t waterproof, you
definitely won’t have to worry about unexpected raindrops or spilled beers
ruining your charger. As long as you don’t take it scuba diving or run it
through the washing machine, it should last.
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